Bernadette, from Droylsden, told Manchester Evening News: ‘No-one told me she’d been moved so I went into the room to visit her, the same room she’d been in all week.

‘Mum’s duffle coat was on the chair. The woman in the bed had grey hair and had thin bones like my mum. She had a pink nightie like my mum. I had no reason to think it wasn’t mum.

‘She didn’t look right and I didn’t think she was breathing. I went out of the room to ask one of the nurses what was wrong and they said ‘don’t you know? She died half-an-hour ago’.

She said she was completely hysterical when she found out and nurses had to calm her down.

Bernadette has officially complained about the incident yet still hasn’t told her mother, who has Alzheimer’s and is still recovering in hospital.

Her boyfriend, Anthony Lewis, who had visited the hospital with Bernadette, said: ‘Bernie just collapsed to the floor when they said her mum was dead. Then they said it was someone else. The whole thing was a big cock up. I just couldn’t believe it.’

Gill Harris, chief nurse at The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, said the incident was ‘unacceptable’ and said they have been in contact with the family to offer their ‘unreserved apology’ and to discuss what happened to ‘ensure that it does not happen again.’